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A look at Stanford computer science, part I: Past and present - Printable Version

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A look at Stanford computer science, part I: Past and present - 82lsju - 04-16-2015

interesting read on the CS department.  I find it amazing that over 1,700 students are expected to take CS106A this year

http://www.stanforddaily.com/2015/04/15/a-look-at-stanford-computer-science-part-i-past-and-present/



Re: A look at Stanford computer science, part I: Past and present - CompSci87 - 04-16-2015

Thanks for the link. I was a PhD student in the department during the move to Engineering, and Eric Roberts was a coworker of mine at DEC SRC before he joined the faculty a few years later. A lot has happened since then!

Re: A look at Stanford computer science, part I: Past and present - 82lsju - 04-17-2015

A look at Stanford computer science part II: Challenges of a growing field

http://www.stanforddaily.com/2015/04/16/a-look-at-stanford-computer-science-part-ii-challenges-of-a-growing-field/

recent Past and ancient past - oldalum - 04-17-2015

It really makes me feel old when the "Past" of comp sci refers to 20 years ago.

Does no one else remember going to the comp sci "building" to use the punch card machines at 3 a.m. because the lines were shorter then? Or the nefarious things that could be done with the boxes of punched-out chads?




Re: A look at Stanford computer science, part I: Past and present - Leftcoast - 04-17-2015

I remember Stuart Reges and CS106 very well. 

Stuart was a young (23?), entertaining, openly gay (discussed in his classes), iconoclastic lecturer and someone who made programming classes fun.  He was accessible and did things like bake cookies for students during finals week.  Much of this was new to a conservative, rural kid like me in the early 80s.  Rumor was the cookies came in two varieties although I can't verify this.

At the time the established profs visibly sniffed with disdain at the thought CS could one day be an undergrad major.  (Hah!)  In practice this meant that grad students/entry level lecturers like Stuart had free rein over how they structured their classes.  Reges won the Dinkelspiel award as an outstanding teacher in 1985.

The controversy began in 1991 when the then 32 year old Reges sent a public letter to the newly appointed Federal Drug Czar that said among other things, "In brief I disagree with the government's anti-drug campaign and I am doing everything I can to make fools of you."  Reges was then interviewed on his letter by a tv news reporter while walking near White Plaza.  If I remember correctly, he politely told the reporter (on video tape!) that he often carried illegal drugs around campus in his backpack, suggested he might have some in it now and used it as a venue to discuss drugs, private property and libertarian principles.  Of course the video was sensational enough that it was on the evening news framed as a warning to parents.

Even in the 1980s CS106 and CS105 were popular and offered every quarter.  I'd be surprised if they didn't have a combined 500 students per year in the early 80s so the 1,700 students now is very believable to me.  By the way, while 106 was tough 107 was much worse.  I've always maintained that when ranked by hours/unit CS107 was the toughest 3 unit course at Stanford. 

Last I heard Reges was working at UW in Seattle - no word on whether or not he still bakes cookies and what he now keeps in his backpack.

http://articles.latimes.com/1991-05-11/news/mn-1260_1_drug-policy

Re: recent Past and ancient past - CompSci87 - 04-17-2015

(04-17-2015, 09:50 AM)oldalum link Wrote:It really makes me feel old when the "Past" of comp sci refers to 20 years ago.

Does no one else remember going to the comp sci "building" to use the punch card machines at 3 a.m. because the lines were shorter then? Or the nefarious things that could be done with the boxes of punched-out chads?

For me the past was 30+ years ago, but punch cards were already long gone. Undergrads would go to LOTS at 3:00am, but happily I could do most of my work on my research group's computers. I think I took one or two classes where everyone was required to use LOTS out of some sense of fairness. Not to say I wasn't in my office at 3:00am sometimes.

The name Stuart Regis rings a bell but I had no idea he was such a colorful character. Never took a class from him.

Re: A look at Stanford computer science, part I: Past and present - Mick - 04-17-2015

Speaking of punch cards, my granddad (Stanford Economics, class of 1942) entered the military in WWII, and worked in the Pentagon, feeding punch cards into an old IBM machine.  His job title?  "Computer operator."  Perhaps he took CS001 at Stanford...

Re: A look at Stanford computer science, part I: Past and present - M T - 04-17-2015

Not at Stanford, but my first experience with programming computers was Fall of 1966 using an interpreted(!!) language (on an IBM Selectric).  My first use of punch cards came about 3 years later (1969) and was the primary input medium for about 5+ years.  There was a short period around 1972 where I used a teletype machine a few times, but then we quickly moved to CRT (primarily 24x80) devices, and then to bit-mapped displays around 1981.  1972 included doing computer graphics (on a vector display).  (That's about the time that handheld electronic calculators became economical in the $100+ range.) My first use of the Arpanet was June 1974.  My grad school got on the Internet in 1977 -- I have email printouts discussing the strategy of getting it there and the specifics of where to place it on campus.  My oldest email that I've found on the Internet is from 1979.  I first owned a computer ($1000+) about 1980.

But I'm just a babe-in-arms compared to other people I know or knew.  One current colleague (yes, he's still leading research), while a student, had discussions with Einstein.

SRI International (rightfully) takes credit for the invention of the mouse, hypertext, and being one end of the first Arpanet (and later Internet) message, and for early robotics work, all within 100' of where I am sitting.  But Stanford also can take the credit because SRI was a part of Stanford at the time.  (All those items are from before I came to SRI.)